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Creation of the World
The Creation of the world of Tolas has been an issue under much consideration from its creators, looking to establish both their own unique ideas for an in-world explanation of how the world came to be like it is whilst also creating a synthesis with previous material that has been borrowed or derived from other sources. While a canon for the chain of events or single event that lead to the world of Tolas being created has yet to be fully formed, this is where some of the explanations and ideas that we have will be placed. In-World Eplanations Zelfolk Creation Myth For more information on this topic, see here. In the continent of Vhir, the people known as the Zelfolk believe that the world was created by the planet's sun, which they call the'' Tyrant'', who they see as a fragment of a greater force which has spread across the sky to fight the darkness of the universe. This then goes on to explain the relationship between the sun, the world and the moon as a chase across the stars coming from a case of scorned love. Their myth also deals with a great war in pre- history that was fought between the forces of chaos and the forces of order, with the latter creating evil to defeat the former. From that act the forces of good also emerged as a counterweight, and another war began between those two. By the nature of the myth it would appear as though such a conflict was still going on in the eyes of the Zelfolk and is epitomised by the relentless pursuit of their world, whom they see as the mother of all true life, by the sun. The War of the Gods The following is taken from an extract written by the First Assistant to the Cultural Considerer of the College of Telinor, Es'ten the Listening, from his series of myths and folklore collected from around Etan. It was recorded through use of the stenotype ''spell, where the speaker's voice was magically recorded verbatim, Es'ten himself includes notes throughout, marked with asterisk. The speaker was an elderly human from the town of Deepwell within the Noble States in the year 578LN who was asked to recount the story of the creation of the world that he had learned from the town's previous story teller, a story which they claimed had been maintained from before the migration of humans from the continent of Farthrone to Etan. ''*I found myself in one of the most curious of places, what felt like the beginning of some great adventure as well as the end of one, sitting by myself in that warm inn in the middle of the town of Deepwell awaiting the storyteller whom I was told bore a strange tale of the way of things, strange enough perhaps for a member of the Great College of Telinor to venture forth an investigate. So there I sat, a generous glass of the house wine along with some of the best salmon I have ever had the pleasure of eating before me, a great cheer ringing out from the common room piercing through the cloth covering across the door, signalling that some new figure was being welcomed to sit by the fire. I feared that all that ruckus might disturb my guest once he arrived and was about to rise up to ask the innkeeper to ask the other patrons keep their merrymaking to a respectable volume (I learned later that a child had received some holy rite of passage at the local church that was the cause of much celebration), when the very man I was awaiting swung the cloth back and strode through the threshold of the small backroom I had booked for the encounter and bowed with a flourish. '' ''His name was Temin, he was an elderly looking human, though he was only in his early seventies as I could gather from his memory of events past, and he wore a cloak of patchwork, gifts he claimed from the various towns that he had visited in his travels to sing songs and tell stories. A most curious fellow who must have found me equally as curious as I explained the nature of the spell that I would cast upon him, that would record his every word as he said it exactly how he said it. Once that was dealt with, I ordered him some food and drink, as was the human custom, and set up the spell with some parchment. I asked him to start at the beginning...* The beginning? No, no, for this story we must start before that, for this great tale, we must start long before there was a beginning. The creation of the world comes later, but first, there was Asgorath... Asgorath, the Creator. Asgorath, the Destroyer. Asgorath, the All-Mighty. An entity that dwelt in the void, the space between spaces, but there was no where but there where he lay, suspended in all of time, a perfect entity in a universe of equal perfection. But, their came change, change in the form of thought. As Asgorath remained in his formless world for all eternity, he began to think and from those thoughts new forms came about, not life, not yet, but something. Something that was not Asgorath, something imperfect, and from that imperfection came chaos and those forms of chaos took on their own will, so strong were the very thoughts of Asgorath. But he saw them and knew them to be his opposites and cast them out of his realm. In doing so he created the Material Plane, Tolas. First came the entity known long ago as Ogremoch who found himself alone, untethered to anything, so he created his own anchor to this reality, taking upon himself the aspect of the earth, the rock and stone. From him the world was formed, barren and lifeless, but there. Second came his brother Azo, so enraged was he by his exile that he scorched the world, burning the rock that was his kin and setting a great flame in the sky to mark their father's betrayal for all time. From this act the sun was created, not yet belonging to Pelor, but we shall get to that. Third came Xhahon-Dor, thrashing and flailing with his many arms, finally laying calm across the bare rock of the world as water, spreading across all its corners creating the many seas and great oceans that our world bears. He lay cooling the surface, shocked at his exile, whilst his older brothers either stood silent or boiled and belched out smoke from beneath the surface of the world, not yet having gained the power of speech as would come later. Finally, Zessara came, the young sister of the four. She came screaming into the world, howling wildly as she landed amidst the rage and pain of a new world being formed, her brothers already fighting between themselves over their creation. She set about around the planet, whipping up terrible storms and summoning terrible hurricanes to wrack the new born world. *Temin drank deep into his cup at this point, and I summoned the barmaid to bring more.* Thank you, you're a decent chap for an elf you know that? - *I honestly have no idea what the man meant by this comment, though I took it as a compliment and thanked him.* - Now, where were we? Ah yes, the bit before the beginning. So these four entities, became known as the Primordials, fragments of Asgorath tinged with the Elemental Chaos of their creation and exile. They claimed the Material Plane as their own and set about forging their own mark upon it. Eons passed, an infinite number of days, more time than will pass ever again. And all through that Asgorath paid them no mind, his focus was on his newest creation, order. He believed this to be perfect like him, but soon his success turned to failure and his fury turned to his newest creation, when his gaze fell upon the Material Plane. He saw what the Primoridials had created, he saw life, he saw us. *I was not sure who the 'us' was that Temin was talking about, though he pointed at both himself and myself, which is obviously incorrect as we are two totally different species, nonetheless Temin went on* '' ''Asgorath the First One saw us mortals, saw everything about us, and he knew, for he was perfect, that we had the potential for such perfection within us. And from that moment, which for him lasted forever but not but a second had passed in the Material, he knew that from these creatures he could final find equals, find the other that would be his match in the void. '' ''He mustered his Nine of Order, nine gods each bound to an aspect of himself, indeed chaos existed within him, but there was order, a form to the chaos that made it a part of the whole. With him at their head they poured out from the other world into this one, material bodies forming around their divinity that they could manipulate. Asgorath, as he passed from the other world took on the form of a dragon, huge was he, larger than the greatest mountains of the world, with a roar that shook the very fabric of the world, making and unmaking reality with his terrible breath. The War of the Gods began, its length and number of victims are countless. The Primordials battled the gods back to the gateway to their world, the first world from which Asgorath was from. As they retreated back, the moment the gods touched that world the changes that they had brought with them from the Material Plane, new ideas, new identities seperate from Asgorath, nine new worlds were created, many mimicing the creator, others serving a greater purpose beyond their creator's intent. The first world melded back with Asgorath and he spread these new worlds out, surrounding the Material, sealing behind him the way for the Primoridals to continue their attack. As Asgorath returned to formless perfection, he remained for another immeasurable amount of time, but was drawn back to the material, when one of his children was slain. A god, who's name has been lost to time, lay dead in the material world. Asgorath found that the war had no ended as he had thought, discovering that the gods had launched another attack on the Primordials from their own planes, creating their own armies to fight those of his chaotic children. '' ''The Nameless God had committed perhaps the greatest sin of the age, forming from its divinity the darkest evil, tempered then by order to wield against the Primordials. But the act had corrupted the once celestial angels of the plane, creating the creatures known as devils, who now stood leaderless and fell to fighting and scheming to find a hierarchy forming the Nine Hells. Asgorath found his fallen child, with the killer Ogremoch, filled with power created by his brother Azo, standing over the corpse. The Perfect dragon struck at the Primordial, bringing him low, easily overpowering him and would have destroyed him outright if not for the beasts raising of the blade of evil, slicing Asgorath in two. Ogremoch stood over his defeated father, roared out to the sky victorious. But from the two halves, two new gods were formed and in that moment their purpose was one, to defeat Ogremoch. Together they were unstoppable, with their power combined they bound the Primordial in the very earth from which he created, slashing him with the black blade. After that the two became enemies, their very being despising one another yet also desperate to once again become one. '' ''The gods began to win the war against the Primordials, like Ogremoch they sealed Zessara in the earth, in a space so small that she is unable to move an inch, a terrible howling they say can be heard from her prison still to this day, when the wind is strong and the worship of the gods faulty. They took the corpse of the sinful god and bound it to the sky, creating a rhythm to the Primordial of Water's movements, allowing them to seal him away deep beneath the very waters that he formed. Lastly, the gods unleashed the Hells upon Azo, their wrath bringing the last Primordial low and mortals that had joined the gods were tasked with sealing him away. Once the Greatest War of All was over, the gods returned to their planes, giving the material world time to recover, occasionally sending creatures from their worlds to populate the world and to spread their worship, which they found gave them purpose as well as strength. Some took stewardship of the Primordial's creations, such as Pelor claiming the sun as his symbol, no longer of rage against an exile but of hope and victory. '' ''But the effects of the war lingered on. From the Nameless God's sin of creating the first evil, demons came from the Abyss, another plane unmonitored by any divine being, appearing to form out of that terrible act. The demons came to the nearest world, that of Baator, to besiege the devils of that world, the First Blood War. The devils cried out for the gods to aid them, with none coming but Tiamat , the goddess of Dragons and Vengeance. Her aid was trivial though, she did not truly seek to aid these creatures, instead she sought a new home away from Celestia where her brother dwelt, his power growing stronger in that realm. '' ''With her place in Baator established following the Blood War, Tiamat pushed her brother Bahamut's plane away from the material world, his followers becoming lost or turning to worship the Queen of Dragons. He had to act to regain his foothold in Tolas, leading to the Dragon War, but that is a tale for another day. *Temin finished here, explaining that it gets quite long and complicated, mentioning something about a time dragon and some rings, things he said were best left up to the imagination. Regardless, I had learned much from the man and was quite pleased with how well he had spoken for the spell, unfortunately I was unable to record the various sound effects and dramatic actions that Temin used to paint a beautiful picture of this story, but I hope I have managed to capture the essence of the tale.*Category:In-World Concepts